(Newser)
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The Who will play a halftime show at the Super Bowl—a fact that residents around Sun Life Stadium in Miami know because of guitarist Pete Townshend's status as a sex offender. A child advocacy group has mailed an advisory to 1,500 homes and schools warning of Townshend's arrival. The guitarist was arrested on child pornography charges in 2003, and though he wasn't convicted, he did end up on a registry. See the advisory postcard at TMZ.

Townshend was cautioned by the British police in 2003 as part of Operation Ore. Following a news leak that Townshend was among the subjects of the investigation,[27] he publicly stated that on one occasion he had used a credit card to access a website advertising child pornography.[28] Townshend, who had posted essays on his personal website in 2002 as part of his campaign against the widespread availability of child pornography on the internet, said that he had entered the site for research purposes and had not downloaded any images............................. A four-month police investigation, including forensic examination of all of his computers, established that Townshend was not in possession of any illegal downloaded images. Instead of pressing charges, the police elected to caution him, stating, "It is not a defence to access these images for research or out of curiosity...................................... In a statement issued by his lawyer, Townshend said, "I accept that I was wrong to access this site, and that by doing so, I broke the law, and I have accepted the caution that the police have given me.

Riffran

Jan 29, 2010 10:55 AM CST

he was caught with kiddie porn..."doing research"..as he put it....sorry petey ole chap you are on the list